The Crown’s third season (which spans the mid-’60s to the late ’70s) not only changes its main cast, but also the show’s thematic focus. The premiere opens with the queen observing that “age is rarely kind to anyone,” and almost every episode thereafter sees the characters confronting mortality or obsolescence.
First, the death of Winston Churchill (John Lithgow) marks the true end of an era. The loss coincides with the election of a new prime minister, Harold Wilson (Jason Watkins), who’s the first Labour PM to serve since Elizabeth (Olivia Colman) ascended the throne. After a frosty start, the two leaders develop a friendship based in mutual respect.
Death comes, too, for Philip’s (Tobias Menzies) mother, Princess Alice (Jane Lapotaire), not long after she moves into Buckingham Palace. Before she dies, she urges her son to rediscover his faith. He dismisses her advice at first, but it comes back to him during the 1969 moon landing. The Duke of Edinburgh becomes obsessed with this event as an outlet for his angst about the banality of his own existence. When an opportunity to actually meet the astronauts fails to cure him of his midlife crisis, he finds comfort in an unlikely friendship with the new Dean of Windsor, Robin Woods (Tim McMullan).
Philip’s uncle, Lord Mountbatten (Charles Dance), doesn’t take the changing course of his life so gracefully. When his role as chief of the Defense Staff becomes a casualty of budget cuts, the military man doesn’t know what to do with himself — until he’s approached with a plot to overthrow Wilson’s government and install him at the head of a new one. The idea appeals to Uncle Dickie’s vanity, but Elizabeth rightly tells him to knock it off.
Speaking of vain uncles: The Duke of Windsor (Derek Jacobi) isn’t much longer for this world. He and Elizabeth have a peaceful final exchange, and he gives her the letters that Prince Charles (Josh O’Connor) has sent him — and what a world she discovers in that correspondence! The former king and future king bonded over feeling like outsiders in their family, but Elizabeth is most affected by Charles’ writing about his infatuation with Camilla Shand (Emerald Fennell).
The season’s increased focus on the Prince of Wales has its own morbidity, as he’ll fulfill his destiny only upon his mother’s death. (He dutifully prepares for it, though, by spending a semester in Wales studying the language.) His romance with Camilla is smothered before it can even breathe; when Mountbatten gets wind of the depth of his attachment, he conspires with the queen mother (Marion Bailey) to separate the couple and ensure Camilla’s marriage to her other beau, Andrew Parker Bowles (Andrew Buchan).
Another love dies with the explosive dissolution of Princess Margaret (Helena Bonham Carter) and Antony Armstrong-Jones’ (Ben Daniels) marriage, in which they’ve both been unfaithful. Feeling alone and irrelevant — having been denied her request to take on more work, despite pulling off a zany diplomatic victory by charming LBJ (Clancy Brown) with dirty limericks — the queen’s dazzling sister attempts suicide.
The season ends with Margaret recovering, Wilson resigning, Charles heartbroken and Elizabeth alone in a golden carriage on the occasion of her Silver Jubilee. Has it really only been 25 years?
QUEEN ELIZABETH RULES: When she shuts down Mountbatten’s coup (Episode 5, “Coup”)
BEST ONE-LINER: “I’ve spent my whole life as vice queen. Except that came out wrong. I didn’t mean I’m a… vice queen.” — Margaret, bonding with LBJ (Episode 2, “Margaretology”)
PRIME PRIME-MINISTER MOMENT: When Labour leader Wilson, a socialist, confesses his secret highbrow tastes to the queen (Episode 3, “Aberfan”)
QUEEN OF SUSPICION: Elizabeth latches onto a theory that Wilson is a KGB mole, until MI5 identifies the real spy in the palace. (Episode 1, “Olding”)
FOR YOUR READING LIST: Saul Bellow’s Dangling Man, the premise of which literary-minded Charles turns into a metaphor for his own existence (Episode 8, “Dangling Man”)
SINGLE-EPISODE STANDOUT EVENT: The tragic Aberfan disaster (Episode 3, “Aberfan”)
POWER PLAYER OF THE SEASON: Mountbatten, the schemer!
